Parole

There are now more than 30,000 people in Virginia prisons, costing taxpayers more than a billion dollars a year. A growing number are senior citizens with average healthcare costs of $68,000 a year. The parole board could release many of them, but it’s been freeing less than five percent per year.

In 1995, Virginia abolished parole -- a change that led to crowding of state prisons and longer stays behind bars. Now, small cracks have developed in the legal wall that keeps about 30,000 people locked up. Sandy Hausman reports on changes that could free some inmates.